Under the Influence

Chapter Nine: Welcome to My Life

“Hey, do you remember what day it is today?” Scott asked me, briefly glancing up from the counter he was wiping down.

   “Halloween?” I gave him a shrug before continuing to pick up the candy wrappers haphazardly littered on the floor. Scott just reminded me that after last night’s pre-Halloween bash, we had to go through with the tedious task of cleaning up the comic book store until it was once again in mint condition.

   “No, I meant other than Halloween.” My brother just stared at me to see if I would get it. I didn’t.

   “Um, All Hallow’s Eve?” It meant the exact same thing, but I couldn’t think of anything else to say (or what Scott wanted me to say).

   “In about three months it’ll be the day of Mom and Dad’s…you know,” he said softly.

   “Anniversary,” I supplied.

   “Yeah. Anniversary.” He agreed with me, but I knew what he really meant—their deaths. Because in terms of importance, death trumps marriage, apparently. Unfortunately for Mom and Dad, the day they died happened to land on their wedding anniversary. They always used to tell Scott and I that they’d wonder how they’d live without each other. Now that I thought about it, they didn’t have to.

   “Way to put a damper on Halloween,” I mumbled.

   “Sorry. I just remembered.” He paused. “Isn’t there a dance at your school today?” Scott asked in an attempt to get the light-hearted Halloween revelry to return.

   “Yeah, it’s tonight from seven to nine.” I thought it was stupid how the school wanted to hold the dance exactly on Halloween, even though it was Sunday. Don’t get me wrong, I loved school and all, but I didn’t want to waste my weekend dancing. And besides, It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown was on at that time.

   Scott checked his watch. “Well you still have a few hours to decide if you wanna go or not.”

   “But I don’t have a date,” I told him. “I don’t wanna look like a loner at the dance.” Plus, ever since Scott brought them up a minute ago, I couldn’t stop thinking about my parents.

   “I think you should go. Unless you wanna stay home and help me hand out candy.” Scott smirked. He knew how much I hated handing out candy to snot-nosed rugrats.

   “On second thought,” I drawled, “I think I might reconsider going to the dance after all.”

   Scott laughed. “That’s what I thought.”

   “Be back in a second,” I said as I headed toward the back room of Crawford Comics.

   “You’d better be. I don’t wanna clean all this up by myself,” my brother called after me. I smiled at his laziness.

   I whipped my phone out of my pocket and dialled Hunter’s number. As soon as it hit the third ring, Hunter answered.

   “Hunter’s sex hotline, how can I assist you today?” Hunter purred in a husky—and lewd, very, very lewd—voice. After a few seconds of silence on both ends of the line, he burst out laughing and assured me, “I’m just kidding, Charlie. So what’s up? Any reason you’re calling the sexiest beast in the east or did you just wanna say hi?”

   “Um… None of the above?” Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to check if Hunter was going to the dance. If he was acting weird already, I didn’t think I wanted to know what he’d be like hyped up on sugar and candy.

   “Oh. What’s up, then?”

   “Nothing much. I just wanted to see if you were, you know, going to the school dance…?”